Cavour Part 4

Arese was in Paris during the Congress, having been chosen by the king, at Cavour's urgent request, to carry his congratulations to the Emperor on the birth of the Prince Imperial.

At the earlier sittings of the Congress, Cavour kept in the background; his instinct as a man of the world, and that mixture of astuteness and simplicity which he shared with many of his countrymen (even those of no education), guided him in filling a difficult and, in some respects, an embarra.s.sing position. He spoke, when he did speak, in as brief terms as could serve to express his opinion.

But this modest att.i.tude only threw into relief his inalienable superiority. He cast about the shadow of future greatness. The representative of the second-rate Power, who sat there only by favour, was to make so much more history than any of his colleagues! Curiously enough the only one of the plenipotentiaries who had a prior acquaintance with Cavour was the Austrian, Count Buol, who was formerly amba.s.sador at Turin. In old days, before 1848, he had played whist with him. "I know M. de Cavour," he said; "I am afraid he will give us _de fil a retordre_." Cavour carefully avoided, however, unnecessary friction. Loyal to both the allies, he managed to steer between their not always consonant aims while preserving his own independence, by taking what seemed, on the whole, the most liberal side in debated questions. With Count Buol he maintained courteous if formal relations, and he soon made a thorough conquest of Count Orloff, who did not begin by being prepossessed in favour of the minister who alone had caused the Sardinian attack on Russia, but who ended on far better terms with him than with his Austrian colleague, of whom he said to Cavour in a voice meant to be heard, "Count Buol talks exactly as if Austria had taken Sebastopol!"

With regard to Cavour's real business, the fate of Italy, he was obliged to proceed with a restraint which few men would have had the self-control to observe. This was what had been predicted; how, in fact, putting aside Austria, could an Italian patriot speak freely of nationality, of alien dominion, of the rights of peoples, in an a.s.sembly of old diplomatists, conservative by the nature of their profession and religiously in awe of treaties by the responsibility of their office? It was only just before the signature of peace that Cavour cautiously launched his bolt in the shape of a note on the situation of affairs in Italy, addressed to the English and French plenipotentiaries. It was conceived on the same lines as the letter to Walewski: the Austrian occupation of the Roman Legations was again made a sort of test question, to which particular weight was attached.

One reason why Cavour dwelt so much on this point was that the occupation could be a.s.sailed on legal grounds, leaving nationality alone. As, moreover, it was admitted that the Papal Government would fall in Romagna were the Austrians withdrawn, the principle of the destruction of the temporal power of the Pope would be granted from the moment that their departure was declared expedient. While D'Azeglio thought that the separation of Romagna from the States of the Church would be "positively mischievous," Cavour looked upon it in the light of the first step to far greater changes. Many other schemes were floating in his brain for which he worked feverishly in private, though he did not venture to support them officially. The object nearest his heart was the union or rather reunion of Parma and Modena with Piedmont, to which those duchies had annexed themselves spontaneously in 1848. In order to get rid of the Duke of Modena and d.u.c.h.ess of Parma with the consent of Europe, Cavour was desperately anxious to find them--other situations. Every throne that was or could be made vacant was reviewed in turn; Greece, Wallachia, and Moldavia, anywhere out of Italy would do; the d.u.c.h.ess, not a very youthful widow, was to marry this or that prince to obligingly facilitate matters:--abortive projects, which seem absurd now, but Cavour was willing to try everything to gain anything. In weaving these plans Cavour employed the energy of which Prince Napoleon complained that he did not show enough in the Congress, though to have shown more would have led to a rebuff, or, perhaps, to enforced retirement. Still there was one point which, in the Congress, as out of it, he never treated with moderation: this was the sequestration of Lombard estates. When Count Buol spoke of an amnesty including _nearly_ all cases, he replied that he would not renew diplomatic relations with Vienna while one exception remained. In an audience with the Emperor, after Walewski had ingeniously tried to excuse Austria for exercising her "rights" over her ex-subjects, Cavour burst out with the declaration that if he had 150,000 men at his disposal he would make it a _casus belli_ with Austria that very day.

Peace was signed on March 30. A supplementary sitting was held on April 8, when the President, Count Walewski, by express order of the Emperor, and to the astonishment of all present, proposed for discussion the French and Austrian occupations of the Roman States and the conduct of the king of Naples (his own favourite monarch) as likely to provoke grave complications and to compromise the peace of Europe. This was a victory for Cavour, as it was the direct result of his "note," but he was afraid that the discussion of the Roman question would be kept within the narrowest limits in consequence of its affecting France as well as Austria. Walewski wished so to limit it; he was embarra.s.sed by the a.n.a.logy of the French in Rome, and by the fear of saying something unflattering of the Pope. But Napoleon would not have risked the discussion at all had he shared his minister's sensitiveness. The truth was, that he was always looking out for an excuse which would serve with the clerical party in France for recalling his troops from Rome. He was thinking then of withdrawing them so as to oblige Austria to withdraw her forces from the Legations. It does not appear that Cavour guessed this. In his own speech he glided over the presence of the French, in Rome as lightly as he could, merely saying that his Government "desired" the complete evacuation of the Roman States; but his reserve was not imitated by Lord Clarendon, nor could Napoleon have expected that it would be. When some one asked Lord Palmerston for a definition of the difference between "occupation" and "business," he answered on the spur of the moment--"There is a French occupation of Rome, but they have no business there;" and this witticism correctly represented English opinion on the subject. It was natural, therefore, that the British plenipotentiary should make no distinction between the French in Rome and the Austrians at Bologna: he denounced both occupations as equally to be condemned and equally calculated to disturb the balance of power, but at the root of the matter was the abominable misgovernment, which made it impossible to leave the Pope to his subjects without fear of revolution. The papal administration was the opprobrium of Europe. As to the king of Naples, if he did not soon mend his ways and listen to the advice of the Powers, it would become their duty to enforce it by arguments of a kind which he could not refuse to obey. An extraordinary sensation was created by the speech of which this is a bald summary; it might have been spoken, Cavour said, "by an Italian radical," and the vehemence with which it was delivered doubled its effect. Lord Clarendon, who, at the beginning of the Congress, was nervous as to what Cavour might do, had been worked up to such a pitch of indignation by the private conversations of his outwardly discreet colleague that he himself threw diplomatic reserve to the winds. Walewski, dreadfully uncomfortable about the Pope, tried to bring the discussion back within politer bounds; Buol was stiffly indignant; Orloff, indifferent about the Pope, was on tenter-hooks as to Russia's friend, the king of Naples; the Prussian plenipotentiary said that he had no instructions; the Grand Vizier was the only person who remained quite calm. Cavour's concluding speech was dignified and prudent; his real comment on the proceedings was the remark which he made to every one after the sitting was over: "You see there is only one solution--the cannon!"

On April 11 he called on Lord Clarendon with the intention of driving home this inference. Two things, he said, resulted from what had pa.s.sed: firstly, that Austria was resolved to make no concession; secondly, that Italy had nothing to expect from diplomacy. This being so, the position of Sardinia became extremely difficult: either she must make it up with the Pope and with Austria, or she must prepare, with prudence, for war with Austria. In the first alternative he should retire, to make place for the retrogrades; in the second he wished to be sure that his views were not in opposition to those of "our best ally," England. Lord Clarendon "furiously caressed his chin," but he seemed by no means surprised "You are perfectly right,"

he said, "only it must not be talked about." Cavour then said that war did not alarm him, and, when once begun, they were determined that it should be to the knife (using the English phrase); he added that, however short a time it lasted, England would be obliged to help them.

Lord Clarendon, taking his hand from his chin, replied, "Certainly, with all our hearts."

When, after Cavour's death, the text of this conversation was printed, Lord Clarendon denied in the House of Lords having ever encouraged Piedmont to go to war with Austria. Nevertheless, it is impossible that Cavour, who wrote his account of the interview directly after it occurred, could have been mistaken about the words which may well have escaped from the memory of the speaker in an interval of six years.

With regard to the sense, the sequel proved that Lord Clarendon did not attach the official value to what he said which, for a moment, Cavour hoped to find in it. Lord Clarendon's speech before the Congress gives evidence of a state of mind wrought to the utmost excitement by the tale of Italy's sufferings, and it is not surprising if, speaking as a private individual, he used still stronger expressions of sympathy. Nor is it surprising that Cavour attributed more weight to these expressions than they merited. Up till now, he had never counted on more than moral support from England; he admitted to himself that the English alliance, which he would have infinitely preferred to any other, was a dream. But the thought now flashed on him that it might become a reality. He decided to pay a short visit to England, which was useful, because it dispelled illusions, always dangerous in politics. In the damp air of the Thames, Lord Clarendon seemed no longer the same enthusiast, and Lord Palmerston pleaded the excuse of a domestic affliction for seeing very little of Cavour. The Queen was kind as ever, but the momentary hope conceived in Paris vanished. One after-consequence of this visit was Lord Lyndhurst's motion, which nearly caused an estrangement between the British and Sardinian Governments. Cavour had taken too literally the a.s.surance that on the subject of Italy there was no division of parties. The warmly Italian speech of the veteran conservative statesman which had been inspired by him was not meant to embarra.s.s the ministry, but that was its effect, and it was natural that they should feel some resentment. Fortunately the cloud soon pa.s.sed away, and if Cavour imagined to gain anything from flirtations with the Tory party he was undeceived by the violently pro-Austrian speech delivered by Mr.

Disraeli in July. The sincere goodwill of individuals such as Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Stanhope (who invented the phrase "Italy for the Italians," so often repeated later) did not represent the then prevailing sentiment of the party as a whole.

Cavour returned to Turin without bringing, as Ma.s.simo d'Azeglio expressed it, "even the smallest duchy in his pocket"; yet satisfied with his work, for he rightly judged that, though there was no material gain, the moral victory was complete. The recalcitration of Austria, which had reached the point of threatening war if Parma were joined to Piedmont, contained the germs of her dissolution as an Italian power. The temporal power of the Pope had been called in question for the first time, not in the lodge of a secret society, but in the council chamber of Europe. Beaten on the lower plane, Cavour had won on the higher; checked as a Piedmontese, he was triumphant as an Italian. In spite of the approval voted by both Houses of Parliament, some shade of disappointment existed in Piedmont, but throughout Italy there was exultation. The Tuscan patriots sent the statesman a bust of himself, with the happily chosen inscription: "Colui che la difese a viso aperto."[1]

[Footnote 1: "He who defended her with open face" (Dante).]

The position of Piedmont after the Congress of Paris was one to which it would be difficult to find a parallel. States are commonly at peace or at war; if at peace, even where there are smouldering enmities, an appearance is kept up of mutual toleration. But in Piedmont the king, government, and people were already morally at war with Austria. When Cavour said in the Chamber that the two months during which he sat side by side with the Austrian plenipotentiaries had left in his mind no personal animus against them, as he was glad to admit their generally courteous conduct, but the most intimate conviction that any understanding between the two countries was unattainable, he was certainly aware of the grave significance of his words. Great solutions were not the work of the pen, and diplomacy was powerless to change the fate of peoples: these were the conclusions which he brought away from Congress. Every one knew that they meant war. Except for the order for marching, the truce imposed by Novara was broken.

Those who had been edified by Cavour's cautious language in Paris stood aghast. It was well enough that Piedmont should protest in a calm, academic way, but protest was now abandoned for defiance. The change was the more unwelcome, because both in France and England the pendulum of the clock was swinging towards Austria. Napoleon disliked to commit himself to any policy, and after seeming to adopt one side he invariably swayed to the other. There was not the same intentional inconsistency in England, but the fact that Austria was undergoing a detachment from Russia improved her relations with England. Lord Palmerston suspected Cavour of being too friendly with Russia. In addition to this, there was a real fear in England lest Piedmont should pay dearly for what was considered its rashness. The British Government put the question to Cavour, whether it would not be better to disarm the opposition of Austria by depriving her of every plausible reason for combating the policy of Piedmont? He replied that only Count Solaro de la Margherita and his friends could live on amicable terms with the oppressors of Italy; England was at liberty to renew her old alliance with Austria if she chose, but upon that ground he could not follow her; Lord Palmerston might end where Lord Castlereagh began, but they would remain faithful to their principles whatever happened.

Two causes tended to prolong a coldness that was new in the intercourse between England and Piedmont. One was the frontier question of Bolgrad, in which, however, Cavour finally acted as mediator, his suggestion being accepted both by the English and the Russian Governments. The other was the _Cagliari_ affair: the _Cagliari_, a Sardinian merchant s.h.i.+p, which carried the ill-fated expedition of Pisacane to Sapri, was captured by the Neapolitan Government, and the crew, two of whom were English, were taken in chains to Salerno. At first the English Foreign Office seemed inclined to back up an energetic demand for rest.i.tution, but afterwards it deprecated strong measures, and left Sardinia somewhat in the lurch.

Circ.u.mstances combined, therefore, to render Cavour isolated, but he understood that this was a reason to advance, not to retreat. Had Sardinia seemed to bend to the peaceable advice of her friends abroad, her ascendency in Italy would have been gone for ever. Cavour drilled the army, and drew nearer to those great popular forces that were destined to make Italy, which could be freed, but never regenerated, by the sword. Piedmontese statesmen had always looked askance at these forces; Cavour was becoming fully alive to the vast motive power they would place in the hands of the man who could command them, and whom they could not command. He was free from the caste prejudices which caused many even good patriots of that date to hold the ma.s.ses in horror. If he had prejudices they were against the men of his own order. Once, in summing up the results of an unsatisfactory general election, he wrote: "A dozen marquises, two dozen counts, without reckoning barons and cavalieri--it was enough to drive one mad!" When he had to do with men born of the people, he instinctively treated them on a perfect equality, not a common trait, if the truth were told. In August 1856 an event took place which had far-reaching consequences: the first interview between Cavour and Garibaldi. Cavour was one of Garibaldi's earliest admirers; he applauded his exploits at Montevideo and at Rome, when the old Piedmontese party tried to belittle him and obliged Charles Albert to decline his services. In one way the hero was a man after the minister's own heart: he was absolutely practical; he might be obstinate or rash, but he was no doctrinaire. Cavour never changed his opinion of people, and even after the General became his enemy he still admired and esteemed him. In 1856 he received him with flattering courtesy, the first recognition he had met with from any person in authority in his own state, from which, after 1849, he had been, not exactly banished, but invited to depart. During the same autumn Cavour began to see much of Giuseppe La Farina, a Sicilian exile, who was intimately connected with the new party, which, despairing alike of the existing governments and of the republic, took for its watchword, "Italy under Victor Emmanuel." In the first instance, La Farina was commissioned to ask Cavour to explain his views. His answer was perfectly frank. He had faith, he said, in the ultimate union of Italy in one state, with Rome for its capital; but he was not sufficiently acquainted with the other provinces to know whether the country was ripe for so great a transformation. He was minister of the king of Sardinia, and he could not and ought not to do anything which would compromise the dynasty.

If the Italians were really ready for unity, he had the hope that the opportunity of getting it would not be very long delayed; meanwhile, as not one of his political friends believed in its possibility, the cause would only be injured were it known that he had direct dealings with the men who were working for it. He was willing to receive La Farina whenever he liked, but on the understanding that he came in the morning before it was light, and that, if Parliament or diplomacy got wind of their relations, he should reply that he knew nothing about him. The interviews took place almost daily for four years, without any one knowing of them. Some hours before dawn La Farina ascended the narrow secret staircase which led directly to Cavour's bedroom, and he was gone when the city awakened. In spite of the almost melodramatic complexion of these secret meetings, it must not be supposed, as some have supposed, that Cavour pulled the wires of all the conspiracies in Italy. His visitor kept him informed of the progress made, the propaganda carried on, but he rarely interfered. He still thought that his own business was to make Piedmont an object-lesson in const.i.tutional monarchy, and to get the Austrians out of Italy. That done, the country, left to itself, must decide whether it would unite or not.

After the Congress of Paris, Cavour took the Foreign Office in addition to the Ministry of Finance. He could not trust either of these departments to other hands; and the country approved, for the conviction gained ground that, whether he was mad or not, only he could extricate it from the situation into which he had drawn it. When one senator called him a dictator, he retorted that, if Parliament refused him its support, he should go away, which was not the habit of dictators. But the mere threat of resignation brought the most recalcitrant to reason. Thus he continued to obtain large sums to carry out the works he deemed necessary, one of the greatest of which was the transfer of the a.r.s.enal from Genoa to Spezia--a step which angered the Genoese on one side, and on the other the old conservatives, who asked what had little Piedmont to do with big fleets? "But the fact was," Count Solaro said with a sneer, "the Prime Minister had all Italy in view, and was preparing for the future kingdom." Cavour also forced Parliament to vote the supplies required for undertaking the boring of Mont Cenis, which most of the deputies expected would be a total failure. In proposing this vote he declared that they must advance or perish. He was delighted with a phrase with which Lord Palmerston concluded a congratulatory letter sent to the Sardinian legation in London, and written in elegant Italian: "Henceforth no one will talk of the works of the ancient Romans." This little episode wiped out the last traces of misunderstanding between the two statesmen, who became again what fate had meant them to be, friends and fellow-workers. Cavour's budgets had the inherent defect that they continued to show increased expenditure and a deficit, but no minister who had lacked the power and the courage to brave criticism by a financial policy which would have been certainly indefensible if Piedmont alone was concerned, could have done what he did. Meanwhile, on the whole, the economic state of the country improved in spite of heavy taxation: the exports and imports increased; there were signs of industrial activity; agriculture revived. Cavour was often bitterly blamed for favouring and sparing the landowning cla.s.s, though whether he did this because he had estates at Leri, as his detractors alleged, or because agriculture must always be the most vital of all Italian interests, need not be discussed now. Improved education stimulated enterprise. That there was room for improvement may be supposed, when it is known that in 1848 the number of persons who could not read was three to one to the number of those who could.

The most severe phase in the financial difficulties was past when, at the beginning of 1858, Cavour consigned the exchequer to Lanza, a.s.suming himself the Ministry of the Interior, which was vacant through the resignation of Rattazzi. The breach between the two men, who were never in entire intellectual harmony, had been growing inevitable for some months. It was final; Cavour resolved never again to have Rattazzi for a colleague. The elections of the autumn before, which Cavour thought that Rattazzi had mismanaged, lessened his confidence in him; but the actual cause of their rupture was briefly this. Cavour wished to put an end to the king's relations with the Countess Mirafiori, whom he married by the rite of the Church during his serious illness near Pisa in 1868--an interference in the private affairs of the sovereign which, though inspired by regard for the decorum of the Crown, must be admitted to have been unwise, as (amongst other reasons) it was certain not to attain its object. In this matter Cavour thought that Rattazzi ought to have stood by him, instead of which he took the part of the deeply offended king, who went so far as to say that only his position and his duty to the country prevented him from challenging his prime minister then and there.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PACT OF PLOMBIeRES

Time seems long to those who wait. The thrill of expectancy that pa.s.sed through Italy after the Congress of Paris was succeeded by the nervous tension that seizes people whose ears are strained to catch some sound which never comes. Especially in Lombardy there was a feeling of great depression: no one trusted now in revolution, which the watchfulness of the Austrians made as impossible as their careless belief in their own invulnerability had made it possible in 1848. The years went by, and help from without appeared farther off than ever.

Meanwhile every interest suffered, and life was rendered wellnigh intolerable by the ceaseless antagonism between government and governed. This was the state of things when the Archduke Maximilian came to Milan full of genuine love for the Emperor's Italian subjects and of determination to right their wrongs. "I much admire M. de Cavour," he said to a Prussian diplomatist, "but when it is a question of a policy of progress, I am not going to let him outdo me." On his side Cavour remarked, "That Archduke is persevering, and will not be discouraged, but I am persevering too, and will not let myself be discouraged." Nevertheless, if there was one thing that Cavour had always feared, it was Austrian conciliation. The gift of a milder rule would change the aspect of the whole question before Europe, and only those ignorant of human nature could suppose that it would entirely fail in its effect with a population which was beginning to be hopeless. Cavour viewed the experiment not without anxiety, but he guessed that the good intentions of Maximilian would be frustrated by the Viennese Government. The forecast was verified, but meanwhile the simple fact that an Austrian archduke had set his heart on winning the affections of the Lombards and Venetians was taken everywhere as a sign favourable to peace.

Then happened the unforeseen event which marks with almost unfailing regularity the turning points in history. On January 14, 1858, Felice Orsini tried to a.s.sa.s.sinate Napoleon III and failed. His failure was strange. The bomb thrown under the carriage which conveyed the Emperor and Empress to the opera did not explode. An accomplice was arrested with another in his hand, which he had not time to throw. Many of the pa.s.sers-by received fatal or serious injuries. Of the previous attempts on Napoleon's life none was prepared with such seeming certainty of success. If others were planned with equal deliberation, could the result be doubted? Napoleon was probably putting this question to himself when he appeared in his box, with an impa.s.sible face, while the conspirators on the stage sang the chorus of the oaths in _Guillaume Tell_. Not a cheer greeted the sovereigns, though what had occurred in the street was immediately known. When the first report reached Turin, Cavour exclaimed, "If only this is not the work of Italians!" On receiving the particulars with the name of Orsini, he remembered that this Romagnol revolutionist had written to him nine months before, offering his services to whatever Italian Government, "not the Papacy," would place its army at the disposal of the national independence, and urging the Sardinian ministers to take a daring course, in which they would have all Italy with them. Cavour did not answer the letter, "because it was n.o.ble and energetic, and he thought it unbecoming in him to pay Orsini compliments." If he had summoned Orsini to Piedmont, the attempt in the Rue le Peletier would never have taken place.

No one in Europe was more dismayed by the news than Cavour, who expected a harvest of embarra.s.sments for Sardinia, and, worst of all, the permanent ill-will of Napoleon. The first expectation was speedily realised: floods of official and unofficial invective were poured upon the two countries, which were held responsible for nurturing the plot.

In England the counter-blast upset Lord Palmerston's Government, and in Piedmont the dynasty itself might have been endangered had not Victor Emmanuel's sense of personal dignity preserved him from bending to the rod of imperial displeasure. Cavour was ready even to forestall the cry for precautionary measures; the air was full of wild rumours, and he thought that Victor Emmanuel's days and his own were threatened, a baseless suspicion, for the most reckless conspirators in those times accounted regicide madness in a free country. But he believed it, and for this reason, as well as from his entirely sincere abhorrence of political crime, he was quite in earnest in his resolve to go as far as the Statute would let him to keep plotters out of Piedmont. Napoleon, however, affected to consider the action of the Sardinian Government weak and dilatory, an opinion which he expressed with vehemence to General Delia Rocca, who was sent by the king to congratulate him on his escape. He hinted that, if his complaints were not attended to, he should seek an alliance with Austria. All the pride of the Savoy blood rose in the veins of Victor Emmanuel: "Tell the Emperor," he wrote to Delia Rocca, "in the terms you think best, that this is not the way to treat a faithful ally; that I have never tolerated violence from any one; that I follow the path of honour, for which I have to answer to G.o.d and to my people; that we have carried our head high for 850 years, and that no one will make me bow it; and that, notwithstanding, I desire to be nothing but his friend." Cavour instructed Delia Rocca to "commit the indiscretion" of reading the letter to the Emperor word for word. At the same time he wrote to the Sardinian Minister in Paris "that the king was ready for the last extremity to save the honour and independence of the country, and we with him." But extremities were not needful. Napoleon was always impressed by the true ring of that ancient royalty which was the one thing which he could not purchase. He wrote a conciliatory letter to Victor Emmanuel: "It was only between good friends that questions could be treated with frankness. Let the king do what he could, and not be uneasy." The French Foreign Office went on scolding through the Legation at Turin, till Cavour said, with a smile, to Prince de Latour d'Auvergne, "But it is finished; yesterday the king had a letter from the Emperor which ends the whole affair."

A little while after, Cavour received a private communication from Paris containing Orsini's last letter, and inviting him to publish it in the _Official Gazette_. It was only then that it began to dawn on him what had been the real effect of the attempt, and of Orsini's trial, on the mind of the Emperor. Cavour had none of the fellow-feeling with conspirators that lurked in Napoleon's brain, and the idea seemed to him absurd that a man should be strongly moved by the pleading of his would-be a.s.sa.s.sin. Among the royal families of Europe, Orsini's influence was at once understood, but it was thought to have its source in fear. It was remarked how, when the sentence of death was pa.s.sed, the condemned man, turning to his counsel, whispered the words of Ta.s.so--

Risorger, nemico ognor piu crudo, Cenere anco sepolto e spirto ignudo.

"The Italian dagger," wrote the Prince Regent of Prussia, "has become a fixed idea with Napoleon." Yet it was not only, and perhaps not chiefly, the fear of being a.s.sa.s.sinated that inclined Napoleon to listen to Orsini's dying prayer, "Free my country, and the blessings of twenty-five million Italians will go with you!" His own part in the revolutionary movement of 1831 has been shown to have been no boyish freak but serious work, into which he entered with the sole enthusiasm of his life. "I feel for the first time that I live!" he wrote when on the march towards Rome. The Romagna was the hotbed of the Carbonari; all his friends belonged to the Society, and it must always be held probable that he belonged to it also. At any rate the memory of those days lent dramatic force to the last appeal of the man who was more willing to go to the scaffold than he was to send him there.

If this view is correct, it follows that when Napoleon talked about an Austrian alliance to enforce his demand for restrictive measures in Piedmont, it was a groundless threat, such as he was always in the habit of using. A month after Orsini's execution, the project of an alliance between France and Sardinia, and of the marriage of the king's daughter with Prince Napoleon, reached Cavour in a mysterious manner, and it is still unknown if it was sent with the Emperor's knowledge, or by some one who had secretly ascertained what he was thinking about. Cavour showed the draft to the king, but he did not place much credence in it. Nevertheless, to keep Napoleon's attention fixed on Italy, he caused him to be informally a.s.sured that if the worst came to the worst, Sardinia would go to war with Austria by herself; the situation was already so strained that almost anything would be preferable to its prolongation. Cavour had just induced the Chamber to sanction a new loan for forty million francs, which suggested that, if others were apt to use empty threats, he was not.

In June Dr. Conneau, who was travelling "for his amus.e.m.e.nt," stopped at Turin, where he saw both the king and Cavour. Under the seal of absolute secrecy it was arranged that Napoleon and Cavour should meet "by accident" at Plombieres. Next month the minister left Turin to breathe the fresh air of the mountains. He was not in high spirits. To La Marmora, the only man besides the king who knew the true motive of his journey, he wrote, "Pray heaven that I do not commit some stupidity; in spite of my usual self-reliance, I am not without grave uneasiness." He succeeded in travelling so privately that he was nearly arrested on arriving at Plombieres because he had not a pa.s.sport: a mysterious Italian coming from no one knew where--no doubt a new Orsini! But one of the Emperor's suite recognised him, and made things straight. He pa.s.sed nearly the whole of two days closeted with Napoleon, the decisive interview lasting from 11 A.M. to 3 P.M., after which the Emperor took him out alone, in a carriage driven by himself.

During this drive the subject of the Princess Clotilde's marriage was broached. Towards the end of the visit, Napoleon said to him, "Walewski has just telegraphed to me that you are here!" The French ministers were, as usual, kept in the dark. It flattered Napoleon's _amour propre_ to take into secret partners.h.i.+p a man whose place in history he divined. "There are only three men in Europe," he remarked to his guest; "we two, and then a third, whom I will not name." Who was the third? Bismarck was still occupied in sending home advice that was not taken from the Prussian Emba.s.sy at St Petersburg. The saying brings to mind another, attributed to the aged Prince Metternich, "There is only one diplomatist in Europe, but unfortunately he is against us; it is M. de Cavour."

In a long letter to the king, Cavour gave a detailed but probably not a complete account of the interviews at Plombieres. It is said that among his papers, which Ricasoli, his successor in the premiers.h.i.+p, gave to his heirs, but which they ultimately restored to the State, there is only one sealed packet--that which relates to this visit. He went by no means certain that the Emperor meant to do anything at all; he came away with great hopes, but still without certainty, for his trust in his partner was limited. He never felt sure whether Napoleon was not indulging on a large scale in the sport of building castles in the air, to which all semi-romantic temperaments are addicted. Still the basis of what bore every appearance of a definite understanding had been established. A rising in Ma.s.sa and Carrara was to serve as the pretext of war. The object of the war was the expulsion of the Austrians from Italy, to be followed by the formation of a kingdom of Upper Italy, which should include the valley of the Po, the Legations, and the Marches of Ancona. Savoy was to be ceded to France. The fate of Nice was left undecided. To all of these propositions the king had authorised Cavour to agree. The hand of the Princess Clotilde was only to be conceded if it was made a condition of the alliance, which was not the case. Cavour believed, however, that everything depended on gratifying the Emperor's wish, and he strongly urged the king to yield a point which seemed to him of no great importance. Since most princesses made unhappy marriages, what did it matter if Prince Napoleon was a promising bridegroom or not? Victor Emmanuel was persuaded by the "reason of State"; but the sacrifice of his daughter cost him more than Cavour could ever conceive.

Napoleon told his visitor that he felt sure of the benevolent att.i.tude of Russia, and of the neutrality of England and Prussia, but he had no illusions as to the difficulty of the task. The Austrians would be hard to crush, and unless thoroughly crushed they would not relax their hold on Italy. Peace must be imposed at Vienna. To this end at least 200,000 Frenchmen and 100,000 Italians would be necessary.

Cavour has been criticised for acquiescing in the crippled programme of a kingdom of Upper Italy. What was he to do? Victor Amadeus II, in his instructions to the Marquis del Borgo, his minister at the Congress of Utrecht, laid down the rule: "Aller au solide et au present et parler ensuite des chimeres agreables." This was the only rule which Victor Emmanuel's minister could observe with any profit to his country at Plombieres. As he wrote himself, "In politics one can only do one thing at a time, and the only thing we have to think of is how to get the Austrians out of Italy."

The period from the meeting with the Emperor of the French to the outbreak of the war was, in the opinion of the present writer, the greatest period in Cavour's life. Patience, temper, forethought, resource, resolution--every quality of a great statesman he exhibited in turn, and above all the supreme gift of making no mistakes. He did not trust in chance or in fate; he trusted entirely in himself. He showed extraordinary ability in compelling the most various and opposing elements to combine in the service of his ends. In spite of Napoleon's promises and of the current of personal sentiment which lay beneath them, he soon foresaw that the unwillingness of France and the const.i.tutional vacillation of the Emperor would render them barren of results, unless Austria attacked--an eventuality which was considered impossible on all sides. Mazzini, who was generally not only clear-sighted, but also furnished with secret information, the origin of which is even now a mystery, a.s.serted positively that "even if provoked Austria would not attack." The same belief prevailed in the inner circle of diplomacy. When Mr. Odo Russell called on Cavour in December 1858, he remarked that Austria had only to play a waiting game to wear out the financial resources of Piedmont, while, on the other hand, Piedmont would forfeit the sympathies of Europe if it precipitated matters by a declaration of war. The only solution would be if the declaration of war came from Austria; but she would never commit so enormous a blunder. "But I shall force her to declare war against us," Cavour tranquilly replied, and when the incredulous Englishman inquired at what time he expected to bring about this consummation, he answered, "About the first week in May." Mr. Odo Russell wrote down the date in his notebook, and boundless was his surprise when Austria actually declared war a few days in advance of the time prescribed. This is statesmancraft!

Cavour had always said that an English alliance would be the only one without drawbacks. Among these drawbacks he doubtless placed the melancholy necessity of ceding Piedmontese territory; but that was not all. There was a peril which would have appeared to him yet more fatal than the lopping off of a limb, because it threatened the vital organs of national life: the risk of an all-powerful French influence extending over Italy. To ward off this danger it was of the greatest moment that Italians should join in their own liberation--that not only the Government and the army but patriots of every condition should rally round the country's flag. Though Cavour has been often said to have lacked imagination, it needed the imaginative faculty to discern what would be the true value of the free corps which he decided to const.i.tute under the name of the Hunters of the Alps. With a promise of 200,000 Frenchmen in his pocket, he was yet ready to confront difficulties which he afterwards called "immense," in order to place in the field a few thousand volunteers of whom the heads of the army declared that they would only prove an embarra.s.sment. Cavour listened to no one. He sent for Garibaldi, then at Caprera, and having made sure of his enthusiastic co-operation, he carried out his project without asking the a.s.sent of Parliament and without flinching before the most violent opposition, internal and external. Had not Cavour felt so conscious of his strength he would have been afraid of offending Napoleon by "arming the revolution"; but he knew that the best way to deal with men of the Emperor's stamp is to show that you do not fear them. Garibaldi, who never did anything by halves, placed himself and his influence absolutely at Cavour's disposal. "You can tell our friend that he is omnipotent," he wrote to La Farina. He begged the Government to a.s.sume despotic power till the issue was decided. Garibaldi did not love the man of the _coup d'etat_; but he knew too much about war to miscalculate either the value or the need of the French alliance. Only a small section of the republicans still stood aloof. Cavour had Italy with him. All felt what Ma.s.simo d'Azeglio expressed with generous expansion, "To-day it is no longer a question of discussing your policy, but of making it succeed." Cavour had torn open the letter with impatience, recognising the handwriting.

When he finished reading it his eyes were full of tears. No one was more whole-hearted in his support of the minister who exacted of him two most bitter sacrifices than the king. "The difficulty," Cavour said, "is to hold him back, not to spur him on." The public, imperfectly informed of what was happening or going to happen, remained calm, for, at last, its faith in the helmsman was complete.

An amusing story is told of those times. The Countess von Stackelberg, wife of the Russian minister at Turin, was buying something at a shop under the Porticoes, when the shopman suddenly left her and rushed to the door. On coming back he said with excuses, "I saw Count Cavour pa.s.sing, and wis.h.i.+ng to know how our affairs are going on, I wanted to see how he looked. He looks in good spirits, so everything is going right."

A misunderstanding arose between France and Austria on a question connected with Servia; it was in outward allusion to this that Napoleon said to the Austrian Amba.s.sador at the reception of the Corps Diplomatique on New Year's Day, 1859, "Je regrette que les relations entre nous soient si mauvaises; dites cependant a Votre Souverain que mes sentiments pour lui ne sont pas changes." Whether there was a deliberate intention to convey another meaning is a matter of conjecture; at all events the whole of Europe gave the words an Italian sense, and Cavour, though taken by surprise, was not slow to turn them to account. In writing the speech from the throne for the opening of Parliament, he introduced a paragraph alluding to clouds in the horizon, and eventualities "which they awaited in the firm resolve to fulfil the mission a.s.signed to them by Providence." The other ministers would not share the responsibility of language so charged with electricity. Cavour then did one of those simple things which yet, by some mystery of the human brain, require a man of genius to do them--he sent a draft of the speech to Napoleon and asked him what he thought of it! The Emperor answered that, in fact, the disputed paragraph appeared too strong, and he sent a proposed alteration which made it much stronger! The new version ran: "Our policy rests on justice, the love of freedom, our country, humanity: sentiments which find an echo among all civilised nations. If Piedmont, small in territory, yet counts for something in the councils of Europe, it is because it is great by reason of the ideas it represents and the sympathies it inspires. This position doubtless creates for us many dangers; nevertheless, while respecting treaties, we cannot remain insensible to the cries of grief that reach us from so many parts of Italy." Cavour had the French words turned into good Italian by a literary friend (for he always mis...o...b..ed his own grammar); one or two expressions were changed; "humanity" was left out. Did it savour too much of Mazzini? Victor Emmanuel himself much improved the closing sentence by subst.i.tuting "cry" for "cries." This was the singularly hybrid manner in which the royal speech of January 10, 1859, arrived at its final form. Much, at this critical juncture, depended on its effect, and nothing is so impossible to foretell as the effect of words spoken before a public a.s.sembly. Cavour stood beside the throne watching the impression which each phrase created; when he saw that success was complete, beyond every expectation, he was deeply moved.

The ministers of the Italian princedoms could hardly keep their virtuous indignation within bounds. Sir James Hudson called the speech "a rocket falling on the treaties of 1815"; the Russian Minister, waxing poetic, compared it with the s.h.i.+ning dawn of a fine spring day.

The "grido di dolore," rapturously applauded in the Chamber, rang like a clarion through Italy. And no one suspected whence this ingenious piece of rhetoric emanated!

The French alliance still rested on nothing more substantial than a secret unwritten engagement which Napoleon could repudiate at will.

Cavour, who would have made an excellent lawyer, strove his utmost to obtain some more solid bond, for which the marriage-visit of Prince Napoleon offered a favourable opportunity. The connection with one of the oldest royal houses in Europe so flattered the Emperor's vanity that he authorised the bridegroom and General Niel, who accompanied him, to sign a treaty in black and white, binding France to come to the a.s.sistance of Piedmont, if that State were the object of an act of aggression on the part of Austria. Possibly, like other people, he thought that no such act of aggression would be made, and that he remained free to escape from the contract if he chose. A military convention was signed at the same time, one of the clauses of which Cavour was fully determined to have cancelled; it stipulated that volunteer corps were to be excluded. He signed the convention, but fought out the point afterwards and gained it, in spite of Napoleon's strenuous resistance. These transactions were intended to be kept absolutely secret, and the French ministers do not seem to have known of them, but somehow the European Courts, and Mazzini, got wind of a treaty having been signed. Different rumours went about: the Prince Consort was informed that Savoy was to go for Lombardy, and Nice for Venetia; others said that Nice was to be the price of the Duchies and Legations. There was a persistent impression that the island of Sardinia was mentioned, which would not merit record but for the general correctness of the other guesses. There is no reference, however, to Sardinia, in the version of the treaty which has since been published, and Cavour indignantly repudiated the idea of ceding this Italian island to France, when the charge of having entertained it was flung at him a year later. Some doubt may linger in the mind as to whether there was not a scheme for giving the Pope Sardinia in return for part or all his territory.

Once again Cavour repeated his demand for yet more money, and this time it was received not, as heretofore, with reluctant submission, but with acclamation. At last people saw what the minister was driving at; only the few who would have disowned the name of Italian voted with the minority. The fifty million francs were quickly subscribed, chiefly in small sums, in Piedmont itself, a triumphant answer to the Paris house of Rothschild, which had declined to render its help.

Cavour's speeches on the new loan were, in reality, addressed to Europe, and no one was more skilful in this kind of oratory than he.

Without apparent elaboration, each phrase was studied to produce the effect desired. The policy of Piedmont, he said, had never altered since the king received his inheritance on the field of Novara. It was never provocative or revolutionary, but it was national and Italian.

Austria was displayed as the peace-breaker, and, as she was pouring troops into Italy and ma.s.sing them near the Piedmontese frontier, it was easy to exhibit her in that light. After having made Austria look very guilty, Cavour proceeded to lay himself out to conciliate England, whose policy was, at that moment, everything that he wished it not to be; but he was determined not to quarrel. The Earl of Malmesbury kept him informed of the "real state of Italy," of which he was supposed to be profoundly ignorant. The Lombards no longer desired to be united to Piedmont, and a war of liberation would be the signal of the reawakening of all the old jealousies, while republicans, dreamers, pretenders, seekers of revenge, power, riches, would tear up Italy between them. In the House of Lords, Lord Derby declared that the Austrian was the best of good governments, and only sought to improve its Italian provinces. Cavour concealed the irritation which he strongly felt. Lord Derby's speech, he said, did not sound so bad in the original as in the translation, and, after all, England's apparent change of front came from a great virtue, patriotism. She suppressed her natural sympathies, because she believed that patriotic reasons required her to back up Austria. He repeated to the Chamber what he had often said in private, that the English alliance was the one which he had always valued above all others. It was a remarkable thing to say at a moment when he hoped so much more from France than from England. But precisely because he hoped to obtain material a.s.sistance from France, he was more than ever anxious to remain on good terms with England. He finely resisted the temptation of saying, "We can do without you." After having got the French into Italy, the next thing to do would be to get them out of it, and he foresaw that England would be useful then. Moreover, angry as he was in his heart, he did not doubt that the "suppressed sympathies" would break out again and prove irresistible. They were even breaking out already, for the arrival of the Neapolitan prisoners caused one of those powerful waves of feeling which, in England, always end by influencing the Government.

Meanwhile, Lord Derby's ministry made Herculean efforts to ward off war, in which, by force of traditions that govern all English parties, they had the opposition entirely with them. They begged Austria to evacuate the Papal Legations, and to leave off interfering with the States of Central Italy. They even asked Cavour to help them, by formulating his views on the best means of peaceably improving the condition of Italy. Cavour answered that at the root of the matter lay the hatred of a foreign yoke. The Austrians in Italy formed, not a government, but a military occupation. They were not established but encamped. Every house, from the humblest home to the most sumptuous palace, was closed against them. In the theatres, public places, streets, there was an absolute separation between them and the people of the country. Things got constantly worse, not better. The Austrian rulers in Italy once offered their subjects some compensation for the loss of nationality in a policy which defended them from the encroachments of the court of Rome, but the wise principles introduced by Maria Theresa and Joseph II. had been cast to the winds. Unless Austria completely reversed her policy, and became the promoter of const.i.tutional government throughout Italy, nothing could save her; the problem would be solved by war or revolution.

It ought to have been apparent that, as far as Piedmont was concerned, the control of the situation had pa.s.sed out of the hands of the Government. The youth of Lombardy was streaming into the country to enlist either in the army or in the corps of "Hunters of the Alps,"

which was now formed. Cavour looked on this patriotic invasion with delight; "They may throw me into the Po," he said, "but I will not stop it." Had he wished, he could not have stopped the current of popular excitement at the point it had reached. It was the knowledge of this, joined to the threatened destruction of all his hopes, that well-nigh overpowered him when--at the eleventh hour--in spite of engagements and treaties, Napoleon seemed to have suddenly decided not to go to war. Prince Bismarck once declared that he had never found it possible to tell in advance whether his plans would succeed; he could navigate among political events, but he could not direct them. Since the meeting at Plombieres, Cavour had undertaken to direct events, the most perilous game at which a statesman can play. For a moment he thought that he had failed.

CHAPTER IX

THE WAR OF 1859--VILLAFRANCA

On the whole it can be safely a.s.sumed that Napoleon's hark back was real, and was not a move "pour mieux sauter." He was not pleased at the cool reception given in Italy to a pamphlet known to have been inspired by him, in which the old scheme was revived of a federation of Italian States under the presidency of the Pope. The Empress was against war--it was said "for fear of a reverse." Perhaps she thought already what she said when flying from Paris in 1870: "En France il ne faut pas etre malheureux." But more than this fear, anxiety for the head of the Church made her anti-Italian, and, with her, the whole clerical party. Nor was this the limit of the opposition which the proposed war of liberation encountered. Though France did not know of the secret treaty, she knew enough to understand by this time where she was being led, and with singular unanimity she protested. When such different persons as Guizot; Lamartine, and Proudhon p.r.o.nounced against a free Italy,--when no one except the Paris workman showed the slightest enthusiasm for the war,--it is hardly surprising if Napoleon, seized with alarm for his dynasty, was glad of any plausible excuse for a retreat. Such an excuse was forthcoming in the Russian proposal of a Congress, which was warmly seconded by England. Austria accepted the proposal subject to two conditions: the previous disarmament of Piedmont, and its exclusion from the Congress. The bearing of the French Ministry became almost insulting; the Emperor, said Walewski, was not going to rush into a war to favour Sardinia's ambition; everything would be peaceably settled by the Congress, in which Piedmont had not the smallest right to take part. None of the usual private hints came from the Tuileries to counteract the effect of these words.

Cavour was plunged in blank despair. He wrote to Napoleon that they would be driven to some desperate act, which was answered by a call to Paris; but his interviews with the Emperor only increased his fears.

He threatened the king's abdication and his own retirement. He would go to America and publish all his correspondence with Napoleon. He alone was responsible for the course his country had taken, the pledges it had given, the engagements already performed (by which he meant the consent wrenched from the king to the Princess Clotilde's marriage). The responsibility would be crus.h.i.+ng if he became guilty before G.o.d and man of the disasters which menaced his king and his country.